Trump heads to South Carolina for Independence Day event which will be ‘retail politics on steroids’

Former President Donald Trump heads to the small town of Pickens, South Carolina, on Saturday for the Independence Day festival, where his aides say supporters can expect “retail politics on steroids.”

He will join a choir that made headlines when it was stopped singing the national anthem in the US capital.

It will be Trump’s first rally since he is accused of mishandling classified documents (he denies the allegations), but insiders say it will differ from his signature mass appearances as his campaign experiments with different types of events.

And it brings the former president to one of the early state’s most pro-Trump counties, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The small town of Pickens has a population of barely 3,000.

Trump has invited the Rushingbrook Children’s Choir, from nearby Greenville, to perform after they failed to sign the national anthem at the US Capitol

It also gives him a chance to show off his support in a state that two of his rivals for the Republican nominations — former governor Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott — call home.

Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said the festival setting would give Trump a chance to meet people up close. “Retail politics on steroids,” he called it.

“We’ll still have meetings,” he said.

“We try to do a lot of different things, and a lot of non-traditional things. This is one of them.’

Trump’s event is part of the city’s “Independence Day Spectacular,” which includes a fireworks display at dusk. Roads in the city center are closed to stop the crowds.

The City of Pickens had been planning the event for eight months. Then Senator Lindsey Graham called a few weeks ago to ask if Trump could speak, according to Bryan Owens, the city’s director of marketing.

“The reason they chose Pickens is because it’s quaint, historic, and beautiful,” he said WSPAthe local CBS affiliate.

“We want to be able to show that to the world. Like everyone else, we welcome anyone who wants to come to Pickens to see the beauty we have to offer.”

Trump had to cancel a rally in Iowa last month as a storm approached. In the photo, workers can be seen dismantling structures at the site after it was postponed

But the VIP guest caused a headache and forced officials to figure out how to fit in the expected crowds in the city center.

Trump has invited the Rushingbrook Children’s Choir from nearby Greenville to perform.

The choir went viral with a video showing them singing the national anthem at the Capitol before being stopped by police.

Officers initially said they were preventing a ‘demonstration’, then came back claiming there had been miscommunication.

Now they will star at the Trump event, where local police said they expect as many as 30,000 people to attend.

He will be on friendly territory. The county voted 74 percent in its favor in the 2020 election, and attendees are expected to come from close neighbors North Carolina and Georgia.

Rallies are an important part of Trump’s strategy, like the one he held in Waco, Texas, in March

Trump’s last rally was scheduled for Des Moines, Iowa, in May, but had to be called off due to tornado warnings.

Trump is the clear front-runner for the GOP nomination, regularly polling about 50 percent among Republicans when asked about their primary choice.

On Friday night, he addressed the Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia.

He welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to end President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.

“Today the Supreme Court also ruled that President Biden is not allowed to wipe out trillions of dollars in student loan debt, which would have been grossly unfair to the millions of people who paid their debt through hard work and diligence,” he said . .